Pacific Spirit Marine Institute

Hebei Spirit Oil Spill May Have Dealt Final Blow After Saemangeum to Migratory Birds.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

This is a dead dunlin simply fallen from the sky exhausted. The Saemangeum land reclamation project, said to be the world's largest, has been spilling hard feelings, dead birds and a vast array of wildlife upon the edge of the Yellow Sea for years.

The project covers an area 7 times the size of Manhattan, somewhere in the neighborhood of 155 sq. miles. The Saemangeum land reclamation project is only a few miles south of Friday's oil spill,as the migratory "crow flies".

South Korea hatched the reclamation project after the Korean War. Originally the reclaimed land was slated for agriculture. Once the tidal flats, vital to the migratory birds of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, were filled the land would increase arable land for rice paddies.

What seemed like a good idea in 1953,for a nation trying to rise up from the turmoil war, turned out to be unnecessary. South Korea was able to produce a massive rice surplus in the face of inefficient agricultural methods. The reclamation project went forward in spite of there being no real agricultural need providing construction work and much needed employment.

The allure of sea side tourism and the prospect of generating perhaps more than 1 billion dollars a year from tourists the Saemangeum project moved ever forward. There was also an enticing prospect of building the worlds largest golf course with more than 500 holes. Countries across the globe have been developing sea side resorts for as long as humans have sought the surf and sand. Forever?

Nearly 80% of the Mediterranean Sea has been developed for tourism. Some places like Valencia in Spain, realized some 20 years ago, it was critical to the environment to reverse the damage that has been done their coastal areas.

More than 1,600 species of life call the Korean Yellow Sea Home. Life in, along, and passing through the Yellow sea range from 70 types of phytoplankton to 500 marine invertebrates, 150 types of fishes, 230 water birds and at least 10 kinds of marine mammals. The reclamation project has resulted in the loss of at least 25% of the total tidal flats in Korea have been lost. Just one of the arguments to continue the project was; more than 300,000 birds that stop at the tidal flats will find another place to refuel. Mallipo perhaps?

"Mallipo is finished" said Choi Kyung-hwan a local fisherman who had come out to help with the cleanup.

Photo thanks www.birdskorea.org